


a long engagement

by flibbityflob



Series: Dorogrid Week [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Fluff, and marriage, just. just fluff.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbityflob/pseuds/flibbityflob
Summary: five years is an eternity to be apart from the woman you plan to marry, even longer in wartime, when letters fail to cross borders and you’re a wanted general in your fiancee’s homeland. reunions, in turn, are kind.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Ingrid Brandl Galatea
Series: Dorogrid Week [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761280
Kudos: 18





	a long engagement

**Author's Note:**

> prompt - Separation. Your absence has gone through me. Like a thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its colour.
> 
> i think ingrid being a useless lesbian is good and i also like hurting her

Of all the foolish things she’d done, a rushed proposal before the world had been set aflame may not have been the most foolish. Not that anyone besides herself and her fiancee knew about the hurried, desperate proposal she’d made. She’d been an engaged woman for five years, and she’d been a soldier for three, desperately fighting to keep her Kingdom afloat, alive, honouring the spirit of her deceased King. The second most foolish thing, however, was trudging herself across the country, avoiding potential Imperial attacks, flanked only by Sylvain and Felix, who’d either gotten together or were avoiding admitting their feelings, all for the sake of some class reunion. At least together, they could reunite with their allies, friends, from the Empire and the Alliance, and the Kingdom of Faerghus could begin a unified retribution. Perhaps she’d even see her fiancee again. A foolish mission, but there had been so little hope in the last five years, she had to hope for something good.

Winter in Faerghus was cold, and the blizzards were a near constant, and she loved it. Blizzards were the weather she’d grown up flying in, the freezing cold necessitating a face covering to stop the frostbite taking her nose, or destroying all the feeling in her face. A Knight’s mask told so much about the wearer, and Ingrid’s was a bright shock of Adrestian crimson, not a symbol of her alliance to the enemy, but of her love to her fiancee, separated from her by distance and time for half a decade. She wasn’t cold, not a bit, and scouting ahead on Kyphon meant none of them would be ambushed by the remnants of the Imperial Army surrounding Garreg Mach. Selfishly, it gave her time to daydream about her fiancee. They were hardly an hour from Garreg Mach, and it had been five long years. 

Of course, life could never be so easy, and whilst they weren’t harassed on the way by the Empire, they were stopped by bandits at Garreg Mach. When the trio arrived, the battle was in full swing, and if Ingrid’s eyes weren’t deceiving her, she could swear she saw His Highness and the Professor, fighting with the same skill they’d shown five years ago, but somehow with even more strength. When the battle ended, it was all she could do to resist the urge to hug the professor, who somehow didn’t seem to have changed over the years. Ingrid had a scar across her face, and countless ones along her arms. The professor was lucky, damn her. Or apparently, asleep. She’d been asleep for five years, somehow. She was such a mysterious creature that she didn’t want to ask. Dorothea wasn’t there, she noticed. It was okay. It had been hard to approach Garreg Mach through the unoccupied Kingdom lands, she couldn’t imagine how much more defended the Imperial side might be. Even for a commoner, like Dorothea, it would have been hard. 

The march back to the monastery, where the professor had decided they would make their base for their assault on the Empire, was filled with more joy than any of them had felt in years. Dedue’s absence was palpable, but it felt glorious to be enveloped in one of Mercedes’ hugs, to talk with Annette in the easy way she’d forgotten they could share, to talk history with Ashe. Dimitri was alive in body, but not in mind, and she forced herself to not dwell on it. She had become quite talented at ceasing dwelling on the subjects that mattered. The Kingdom would raise its banners at Garreg Mach, and with the professor at their helm, they would win. She was sure of it.

* * *

When she had proposed to Dorothea, five long years ago, it had been a hurried matter, done after eight months of cautious, gentle courting. She’d imagined being proposed to countless times, but being the one who sank to one knee, offering a vow of protection and love until the day she died had felt incredible. Dorothea had sent her few letters over the years, but her first had included one of her rings, in lieu of a real engagement ring. She had worn it every day, and yet until her return to the monastery, and thus her old room, she never felt its weight. Her room, which she hadn’t had time to clear out before Edelgard’s army had attacked. Her room, which she’d kept simple and bare, sans the books Dorothea had left, some of her dresses, a pallet of makeup. It ached, to see the things her lover had left behind.

The days passed with a bizarre mix of desperate urgency and lazy contemplation. A week felt like both a month and a day, and it was killing Ingrid. She took to walks every morning to clear her mind, to focus on her the task she’d be given later in the day, and to stop dreaming of Dorothea. She was a knight, a general, and a soldier, not a lover. Her attempts at poetry had proved that, if nothing else. She couldn’t yearn in the way her soul wanted. Yet walking through the monastery hurt, as she passed through the reception hall she could swear she saw her, as she passed the pond she remembered a foolish midnight fishing date, and she spent longer than she needed at the market each day. The market was the only entrance to Garreg Mach, and she kept her eyes on the open gates, as if praying for dark brown hair and a bright red dress to walk through the door. Nobody of that description did. Occasionally, she thought she saw her lover, but by the fifth mistake, she forced herself to keep her hopes down. Dorothea wasn’t coming back.

It was in the second or third week of their occupation of Garreg Mach that she awoke, early, to Felix at her door. He said nothing, just looked at her with an expression that appeared, as all his expressions did, to be irate, but that she knew was a curious one.

“What is it, Felix? I was on guard duty ‘till three last night, I’ve only just gotten up.”

“You’re needed in the war room. Professor asked me to tell you.”

“Oh. Thank you, tell her I’ll be a minute.” She said, reaching for her sword belt, adjusting the loose shirt she’d pulled on in a morning haze, as her old friend nodded and walked out of the door.

Her mind wandered as she wandered through the monastery, perhaps Dimitri had made some miraculous breakthrough, or the Empire was willing to broker a peace, or perhaps Rhea had turned into a dragon and escaped Imperial custody. All impossible, she knew, but she wasn’t a tactician or a leader, just a general and a soldier. So, she was needed for battle preparations. 

She knocked on the entrance to the war room, as was polite when imposing on your commanding officer, and it flew open as if forced by magic, and she was assaulted by a tall woman, dark hair blotting out her eyes. It took her half a second, before she realised who it was, and lifted her fiancee off the ground, grinning as she pressed kisses into Dorothea’s neck. She couldn’t help herself from beaming, Dorothea was right there in front of her and she was already demonstrating incredible self restraint in not marching her off to the cathedral to get married right that second. She went for the second best option, then, which was just to stare. 

“Oh, Ingrid.” Dorothea said, her voice thick with emotion and her eyes glistening with tears. “You’re alive, my love.”

“Of course I am, Dorothea. I promised, didn’t I?”

“You did. But two years ago your letters stopped, I’ve been writing them every few weeks and I never received a single reply, and then stories started emerging about you being killed in battles with the Empire, and I believed them.”

“I- I thought you’d stopped writing to me, that it had become too unsafe to send letters-” She paused, taking Dorothea’s hand in her own and kissing it softly. “They must have stopped letters at the border. Censorship is vital in a war, they couldn’t risk it.”

“If I discover whoever’s been keeping my letters from you, I’ll kill them. I thought you were dead, Ingrid. I thought any day now, Edie would bring your head through Enbarr on a pike, and I’d have to deal with being a widow to an enemy soldier.”

“Oh, love.” Ingrid said, and took in her fiancee, dressed not in the reds she’d expected, but a dress of black, highlights of blue in the necklace she wore, in the lining of her travelling cloak.

“Mourning dress, of a sort. When you love someone who dies, you wear black to show you’re mourning their loss. Nobody bats an eye in Enbarr, so many of us have lost loved ones.”

“Oh, Dot, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Hush, love. I’ll have time to be angry later, both at Edie, for all of this, and at you, for getting yourself into such a situation that you have so large a scar. I don’t class such foolishness as keeping safe, Inga.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It was another Pegasus Knight, and an archer. But- why are you here, love? There’d be no need to fight if I was dead, no obligation or anything.”

“No obligation? Ingrid, my plan was to rejoin the Kingdom’s army and get some kind of justice for you, find whoever killed you and make them feel even a hint of the agony I’ve felt for the last two years.” She said, the tears falling from her eyes enough to distract Ingrid, who suddenly became preoccupied with wiping them from her face, desperate to provide some comfort to the woman she loved so much.

“If I die, love, I don’t want you to fight for me. If I die for you, protecting you, then it’s a good death. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Stop that, right now. You’re not dying for me. You’re going to go right now, and find me Flayn, and you’re going to meet me at the cathedral as soon as possible.”

“Why? Of course, I will, but why? What do I tell her.”

“I refuse to let myself go to war in truth whilst not married to the woman I love. We’re getting married, right now. Five years is a long enough engagement, and I’d like to think we’re ahead of the times. I’ll sort the rings, now go and find her.”

“I- Yes, of course, my love. I love you, you know.”

“And I you. Now, go.” She said, her voice laced with adoration. 

Their wedding was a quiet one, attended only by Flayn, and the professor, both of whom swore to keep it a secret until both of them were ready to share it with the Lions. Neither broke their promise, but the rings they wore and the shared expressions of blissful joy told their allies all that was needed to know. All around them shared in their joy, and their high spirits lasted far longer than the day itself.


End file.
